The Israeli navy intercepted and boarded the last remaining vessel of a flotilla headed towards Gaza without incident, NBC News reported today.
The boat — the Marianne av Göteborg, one of four in a convoy called Freedom Flotilla III carrying pro-Palestinian activists — was boarded and redirected to the port of Ashdod without incident, the Israeli Defense Forces said in a one-paragraph statement.
The Jerusalem Post added:
According to the IDF, Israeli security forces boarded the vessel without incident after passengers made it clear after numerous diplomatic communiques that they would not acquiesce to the army’s demands to redirect away from the Gaza Strip. The vessel was being escorted to Ashdod and was expected to arrive later on Tuesday.
Participants are protesting Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza, as well as the restrictions it has placed on land crossings since they believe the Gaza borders should be open. …
Israeli officials reiterated on Sunday that Jerusalem has no intention to allow the boats to reach Gaza, and that the organizers are well aware both that there is a legal naval blockade of the area, and that all humanitarian aid into Gaza can pass through established channels.
In a letter that was distributed to the crew aboard the boat, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote:
You seem to have gotten lost. Perhaps you meant to sail to a place not far from here – Syria, where Assad’s army is slaughtering its people every day, and is supported by the murderous Iranian regime.
Here in Israel we face a reality in which terrorist organizations like Hamas try to kill innocent civilians. We defend our citizens against these attempts in accordance with international law.
Despite this, Israel transports goods and humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip – up to 800 trucks a day. In the past year we enabled the entry of over 1.6 million tons of products, an average of one ton per person in the Gaza Strip. By the way, these supplies are equivalent to 500,000 boats like the one you came in on today.
Netanyahu added that last year Israel intercepted a ship carrying weapons to Gaza.
In 2011, a United Nations report found that Israel’s blockade of Gaza was “a legitimate security measure” to counter the threat posed by Hamas and was therefore lawful. Ban Ki-Moon, the secretary general of the UN, last week called the flotilla “unhelpful.”
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